Discussion Topic

My wife and I spent the last 9 weekends remodeling our kitchen and parts of our first floor. It was a lot of man hours and much climbing, biking and fly fishing was missed while we did it, but we are really psyched on the results! I also pushed my DIY skills to a new level.

Brandon, I've used one of those Lancelot tools, but didn't know it by that name. I used it to texture some old fir beams for exposed headers in my kitchen. I used it to give the surface a scalloped look, kind of like a beam hand hewn with an adze. It cleaned up the splintery, oxidized surface layer real quick. I just set the beams on some milk crates and straddled them to work. Then stained them a dark, dark, almost black brown. It's a nice look, and I've always wanted to get one of those tools for my quiver - I borrowed one for that job.

Are you saying you fine tune your joints in the timber framing with one?

The Torrey Pine is fairly stable, but does have a tendency to wind when drying. I mill it to at least 3 inches on slabs more than 2 ft wide, more like 4 inches after 3 1/2 ft, that leaves room to work it flat later if it winds or to possibly resaw it if it stays flat. As far as cupping goes, those tables are built with not fully dried wood tops, and after a few days in the sun there is some slight cupping when the boards are loose. I'm expecting that stickering, stacking and storage of the top boards will take most of that out. If you didn't notice upthread, Edge, they are built to be broken down quickly for easy storage and transport. They won't be intact for more than a couple of days at a time.

The way they're built, there are 4 5/4" x 8/4" cleats running perpendicular to the grain underneath the tops with 3 5/16ths lag screws running up through the cleats and pulling each side of the tops down tight to the tops of the mini beam cleats. As the top boards are only 4/4" - 5/4" thick and up to 21'' wide, a little cup can be pulled out of the with the lags. The top boards aren't planed with a full sized planer to parallel planes, but left roughsawn underneath and free planed with a Makita 6 3/4 inch planer on top. A very nice tool, BTW. There are no glue joints, so expansion and contraction doesn't matter much, the fasteners are all in oversize holes to allow movement.

They're not supposed to be perfect, and the live edges, knots, cracks, and slight variations in thickness all make any other imperfections less noticeable.

The saw with the blue cord has an Ace blade that is the largest I've found
with a diamond knockout.

Credit: treez

I use that set-up to cut plates together for extreme accuracy. It gets about 2 and 15 depth of cut so depending on the lumber, sometimes a quick trim with
my knife on the bottom one.

I also have a Big-foot saw (heavy) and a Makita beam-saw (heavier).

I can cut 6x6 in two passes with the skilsaw which is better than dragging out the big boys.

Speaking of spinning carbide, check out my new love:

Credit: treez

I built the extension table and overhead dust collection myself, obviously.
The in-saw dust collection is a dedicated 750cfm Jet unit. The overhead goes to a 6 horse shopvac. I can rip mdf all day without a spec of dust escaping.

Credit: treez

Credit: treez

The left switch controls the Jet DC, the middle switch "arms" the overhead DC to come on with it or not, and the third is a spotlight mounted on the mast.

Nice! I'm not a fan of pinned blade guards, but that's just because I built decks for a few years. One accidental set down of a saw with a pinned guard and you're screwed.

The reason I'm replying is to acknowledge the difference from east coast to west coast in regards to circular saws.

I moved to NH with my sweet Bosch worm drive saw. I love it, can run it one handed all day, and it has no cord to get tangled on joists. You plug the cord directly into it. Everyone I've worked with here has talked trash about it because 'its too heavy'. The saw of choice here is a left handed Makita sidewinder. No worm drives to be seen for the most part.

With my crew when push comes to shove and we need to cut beefy lumber, the worm drive is requested. Hopefully I'm changing opinions, because the longer frame on my saw allows for faster, more accurate cuts on sheet goods, and more torque on large cuts.

I wonder why this is, a worm drive was mandatory when I framed in California. Maybe it's due to codes requiring heavier framing because of earthquakes?